Unilever

Unilever: A new product scanning technology

About Unilever

Unilever PLC is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company. The company’s products include baby food, beauty products, bottled water, breakfast cereals, cleaning agents, condiments, dairy products, energy drinks, hygiene products and more.

The challenge

It can be difficult for the 217 million people worldwide who have moderate to severe visual impairments to use Unilever products and access essential information about the products. This group of consumers is unable to autonomously navigate shopping aisles or benefit from new and evolving set of products which have new ingredients or allergies, unique instructions, or concentrated formulas. Unilever believes navigating products like this are a basic human right that everyone should be able to do and do safely, whatever their visual acuity.

The project

Unilever worked with the RNIB and Zappar to create a brand-new scanning technology and type of Accessible QR code solution that can be scanned at distance and voices the information on pack for consumers, adapting to smartphone accessibility settings for native apps.

How does it work?

1. Unilever has integrated the Accessibility QR Code into existing and widely adopted Accessibility apps; Microsoft Seeing AI, envision and BeMyEyes. All you do is open your existing accessibility app on your smartphone either at home or in a shopping aisle. There is no need to download a new scanning app solely for this function.
2. Open the camera function, point at the product, and at around 1.2 metres away, a 15mm Accessible QR code will be detected (the bigger the QR code the further away the initial detection). That’s over 6x the scanning distance of QR code from a mobile device.
3. It will then announce the category of the product and its physical distance from the user through text-to-speech. It can detect multiple codes simultaneously in the camera view, allowing the user to select which product they are most interested in on store shelves or at home.
4. As you move closer, and at over 3x the distance of normal QR scanning, it can announce whatever relevant product information the brand has chosen to provide e.g. product format and variant, the product benefit, specific allergens, ingredients and how to use the product.

The result

Since introducing Accessible QR codes in 2023, Unilever have scaled this technology globally across 35 brands in 25 countries worldwide – with over 3 billion packs now featuring this innovative technology.

The scheme has received positive feedback from RNIB:

‘“This new Accessibility QR Code solution provides an enhanced user experience with greater detectability and situational awareness. We strongly support the development of this initiative to improve the accessibility of product information for blind and partially sighted people. – Accessibility Innovation Team, RNIB

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